They announced the planned break in alliance between GMO and Roundup manufacturer Monsanto and The American Academy of Pediatrics. Please read the full article here.

I say planned because the break reportedly won't happen until the end of the year. I'm interested in seeing if that goes through or if the AAP and Monsanto are expecting people to forget all about this in their move on to the next celebrity news item. I'll keep you posted on that.

A short blog on something that’s very common in probably every culture. Traditional masculine or dominant ego, whether seen in straight or lesbian/gay sex circles, will knowingly or unknowingly stand in the way of a woman/receiving partner and what her/his body needs for her best sex and orgasm.

It comes from mental conditioning spread by certain cultural and social influences over a person’s lifetime. A grapevine effect, as I call it, or by direct influence of men (or women) who already believe fully in it. One consequence of never questioning this form of ego is living for years in an illusionary sex life. Beliefs like:

I've been wearing Gunnar glasses for over a year now to solve the eye strain problem caused by computer/laptop monitor light. They work very well. My wife wears them as well as some of her co-workers after she told them. A few months ago, something prompted me to do further research into how computer/laptop monitor light interferes with sleep.

What this has to do with sex is, the less sleep and also quality of sleep you have, the more your sex drive suffers plus other things like falling asleep in the middle of sex, which some people get mad at their partners for and take personally.

The closest thing to a body condom has arrived! It's called the Scroguard. It's a condom for the scrotum and the entire penis.

The problem with condoms is they don't protect against HPV or herpes infection. Both STD's are transmitted from skin-to-skin contact and while a condom can protect a woman's cervix from an unknowingly infected man's penis, the base of the penis and the surrounding skin is not covered. This comes into contact with her vulva during intercourse where the penis is of a size where it can be fully inserted.

One debate that you hear if you're listening to different sex teaching professionals is whether you should be goal-oriented with your orgasms to have bigger and better ones, or not care about whether you have one and just enjoy the ride whether you have an orgasm or not. You get people who are divided in their opinions and stay that way. My position is they both are important.

Let's take the first one. Goal-orientation toward having orgasms and then having more of them in the same sex session, having bigger orgasms, different kinds of orgasms, and combining orgasms to name a few of the directions you can go with making your sex life a more sophisticated and exciting one. The reasons why goal-orientation is good and needed is:

I had a conversation with a friend of mine about what she thought may have been the most pivotal erroneous belief she had about sex-- past tense.

Now, she sees things differently. It's one of the most common presumptions I hear: believing everyone has the same anatomy and sexual capabilities that you have, the same progression of learning about sex, and the same sexual skills knowledge or lack thereof.

My mentor Betty Dodson has a section in her book, Sex For One, describing how her mother would say things like:

"Oh Betty Anne, everyone knows that."

Or the opposite...

"That isn't true." (because it wasn't true for her).

Both examples swing to their opposites; not everyone knows that even though you figured a piece out by yourself and "it" is true for certain people.

I tied the knot. Eric Amaranth is now a married man. Happily as well. My wife appreciates my capability to do multiple forms of sexual stimulation to her simultaneously and successfully. The more that's going on, the better and the easier for her to orgasm(s). Combos of everything from physical stim to mental and verbal stim. She didn't have to practice to develop this ability. However, when we met, she had no idea her body and neurology favored this because it had never been done to her before. It was there waiting to be uncovered. Or... to stay hidden permanently like forgotten buried treasure.

No one talks about it. It makes the ego sting when what one does well in bed fails. Blame is placed on the other person when much better responses exist. Here are some tips for dealing with this before deciding to break it off too soon.

1. Communicate. Talk with your partner to get more information on how good something feels that you’re doing. Maybe that something you think works… really isn’t significant at that time or to their body in general. Get info on the things they know is hot for them that perhaps did nothing for your last partner. If you’re in a marriage, this is especially important because you are sharing the same life with your partner now and there’s no easy way out of that.

My girlfriend and I went to a wedding this past weekend and decided to bring four of our favorite sex toys with us. Two were vibes shaped innocuously. One was a dil with an obvious phallic shape. The fourth was a glass design that defies brief description. Which is why it’s pictured at left. Read on for the humor and adventure.

The writer I worked with, Dana Schuster, wanted to interview as many of my Talk Session and Guided Session clients as possible, which was arranged. I want to thank very much all of my past and present clients who helped me out so that this article could be published. Dana wanted to hear from real people about the results I create and you guys weren't shy. You made it happen.

Anyway, I was very happy with the quotes she took from people including one of my top three favorite quotes from my teacher Betty:

Everyone knows monogamy's weaknesses: same partner, no other partners to experience sex with, the loss of enjoying the unique little strengths that given lovers will have in bed for you or when you do things to them. However, it's very helpful to be aware of monogamy's strengths. Ones that are under-utilized by most.

I'm very happy with my article. My best press yet, in fact. I even received better cover billing than Justin Bieber did. It was almost two years in the making with all the rewrites and “Which issue will it go in?” questions.

I also want to blog on it to clarify two things for its readers because with lots and lots of rewrites and fact checkers adding and subtracting, some things are lost in translation. Spoiler alert: read the article first before you read this blog post. Then, I’ll talk on some of the behind-the-scenes details.

Sex therapists, educators, and sex life coaches alike all get this question on a weekly basis.

People have things in their sex lives that are hot for them, have desires to do things, look at how much sex they're having and for how long etc. etc. and wonder if where they are or what they're doing is favorably comparable to their neighbors' sex lives or the collective in general. Sometimes the question pertains to physical characteristics. Anatomy questions aside, I answer them thusly:

"We first have to define "normal" and establish for one's self a decision to have an extraordinary level of satisfaction with one's sex life."

Here is part one of my previous blog on Dr. Louann Brizendine's book, "The Female Brain." On with part two:

This brings me to a very important point when evaluating the results of scientific researchers and how they influence your beliefs about what is and isn’t. Many times a given scientific body or community will agree on something. Many times they do not. Never forget this when you
turn to science for answers. I like science, I’m not saying to ignore it. Science can be exact and perfect and it can also be controversial or worse, trumped up for other motives.